While many Orange County families may not see the national awards for excellence that CHOC Children’s consistently earns, they experience firsthand the world-class care it provides. But in order to sustain its performance as a premier children’s hospital, in keeping with advances in medicine and the region’s growing needs, CHOC is taking bold action for transformative change.

Orange County has grown robustly since 1964, when CHOC Children’s first opened its doors. As the county swelled, more and more families turned to CHOC, developing it into the hub of a regional pediatric healthcare system, responsible for two million children—more than the child population in any one of 39 states.

Now, market and mission demands are pushing this invaluable local asset to grow and pulling it toward its destiny: to become a sustainable, world-class children’s hospital that stretches the limits of possibility for nurturing and protecting the health of children.

This is why CHOC has launched the Change CHOC, Change the World campaign—and why it is turning to you for help in reaching its potential. To meet CHOC’s social responsibility to children and the families of this community, the campaign is comprised of three initiatives that are its focus for the next fi ve years—build a state-of-the-art facility; build a signifi cant endowment; and build an affi liation with an academic medical center.

The campaign is already hard at work. Achieving and sustaining the greatness of a premier children’s hospital requires scale. For this reason, CHOC is building a modern tower that will enable it to provide high-quality care and grow well into the future. Beyond improving infrastructure and creating pediatric surgical suites, an emergency department, and radiology and pathology departments, the tower will bring peace of mind and hope to children and families.

CHOC is also working to build a signifi cant endowment to enable it to better attract top pediatric subspecialty doctors. All of the top children’s hospitals became great by building endowments that fund talented doctors, and drive research and clinical breakthroughs.

Such breakthroughs at CHOC will improve the lives of children locally, nationally, and globally for generations to come.

The best children’s hospitals also have affi liations with leading universities and their medical schools. That is why CHOC and UC Irvine have struck an affi liation agreement that integrates comprehensive clinical care with leading-edge research and world-class teaching programs. The affi liation will help CHOC recruit the best and brightest physicians and improve the region’s pediatric care.

The campaign represents a critical opportunity for all of us to make a collective statement about what we want for our children. The evolution of CHOC is a defining, foundational element of the culture of this county that says, “We believe it’s critical for Orange County to be one of the safest and healthiest places for children in the country.” With the campaign, CHOC is taking large, necessary steps to make this a reality.